European Foundry Industry Sentiment

Janu­ary 2021: European foundries start the new year with a pos­it­ive momentum

After the European Foundry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator (FISI) already closed the pre­vi­ous year with a pos­it­ive sig­nal, it increased by sig­ni­fic­ant 1.1 index points in Janu­ary. This increase rep­res­ents the largest monthly growth since April 2018. The new level of 101.3 points is driven by both an improved assess­ment of the cur­rent situ­ation and more optim­istic expect­a­tions, with the first slightly out­weigh­ing the lat­ter. It is note­worthy that this increase in both para­met­ers applies to foundries in all three mater­ial groups ‑steel, fer­rous and non-fer­rous- for the first time since August 2018.

This is par­tic­u­larly prom­ising since the data for the first time also address the dif­fi­culties regard­ing the vac­cin­a­tions and dis­cus­sions about the mutated virus vari­ants. Mean­while, the adop­tion of the cooper­a­tion agree­ment between the EU and the United King­dom is likely to have had a pos­it­ive effect.

The Busi­ness Con­fid­ence Indic­ator (BCI) also con­tin­ues to recover. With an increase of 0.1 points, the index has risen for the eighth month in a row.

The FISI – European Foundry Industry Sen­ti­ment Indic­ator – is the earli­est avail­able com­pos­ite indic­ator provid­ing inform­a­tion on the European foundry industry per­form­ance. It is pub­lished by the European Foundry Asso­ci­ation (CAEF) every month and is based on sur­vey responses of the European foundry industry. The CAEF mem­bers are asked to give their assess­ment of the cur­rent busi­ness situ­ation in the foundry sec­tor and their expect­a­tions for the next six months.

The BCI – Busi­ness Cli­mate Indic­ator – is an indic­ator pub­lished by the European Com­mis­sion. The BCI eval­u­ates devel­op­ment con­di­tions of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor in the euro area every month and uses five bal­ances of opin­ion from industry sur­vey: pro­duc­tion trends, order books, export order books, stocks and pro­duc­tion expectations.

CAEF Con­tact:

Till­man van de Sand
Sec­ret­ary Com­mis­sion for Eco­nom­ics & Stat­ist­ics
phone: +49 211 68 71 — 301
mail: tillman.vandesand@caef.eu